| The Children of Huang Shi | |
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U.S. theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Roger Spottiswoode |
| Produced by | Arthur Cohn Wieland Schulz-Keil Jonathon Shteinman |
| Written by | Jane Hawksley James MacManus |
| Starring | Jonathan Rhys-Meyers Radha Mitchell Chow Yun-fat Michelle Yeoh Guang Li |
| Music by | David Hirschfelder |
| Cinematography | Zhao Xiaoding |
| Editing by | Geoffrey Lamb |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Classics (USA) |
| Release date(s) | April 3, 2008, Asia May 23, 2008, US |
| Running time | 125 minutes |
| Country | Australia, China, Germany |
| Language | English, Chinese, Japanese |
| Box office | $7,782,470[1] |
The Children of Huang Shi (Chinese: 黄石的孩子; working title: The Bitter Sea, also known as Escape from Huang Shi and Children of the Silk Road) is a Chinese 2008 film. The film centres on the story of George Hogg and the sixty orphans that he led across China in an effort to save them from conscription during the Second Sino-Japanese war.
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George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is a young British journalist from Hertfordshire in England. In 1938, during the early days of the Japanese occupation of China, he sneaks into Nanjing, China, by pretending to be a Red Cross aid worker. Hogg is captured by the Japanese while photographing them committing atrocities and is about to be executed when Chen Hansheng (Chow Yun-fat), a Chinese communist resistance fighter, saves him. While hiding in the rubble with his new allies, Hogg witnesses the execution of two of his colleagues by the Japanese. Overwhelmed by shock, he inadvertently reveals their presence. A firefight ensues, and Hogg is wounded. While convalescing, he is sent to an orphanage with 60 boys in Huangshi to help Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell), the American nurse who runs it. Soon after his arrival, the boys savagely attack Hogg with sticks; thankfully, Lee arrives just in time and threatens to abandon the boys, leaving them without medical supplies or food.
At Lee's insistence, Hogg helps her to convince the boys that the treatment of lice by flea powder does not hurt. Lee's demonstration of the treatment on a naked Hoggs in the middle of the courtyard manages to convince the boys and they all promptly accept treatment. Lee leaves for two months, and Hogg reluctantly stays behind so as not to leave the boys abandoned. Hogg gains the boys' respect by repairing the lighting, being their teacher, and getting food for them.
Fleeing from the nationalists who want to conscript the boys into their army to fight the Japanese, they make a three-month journey across the snow-bound Liu Pan Shan mountains to safety on the edge of the Mongolian desert, the first 900 km on foot. To their relief, for the last part of the journey they are supplied with four trucks.
At the destination they are supplied with a building that they turn into a new orphanage. In 1945 Hogg dies of tetanus. This was foreshadowed by Lee, when she had described the horrors of the disease to him earlier.
The film features the Rape of Nanking[2] and the Sankō Sakusen,[3] and ends with a few brief interview snippets with some of the surviving orphans.
The film received mixed reviews from Western critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 31% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 71 reviews.[4] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 49 out of 100, based on 22 reviews.[5] The New York Times gave the film an overall positive review, praising the acting and its "realistic depiction of war-ravaged China".[6]
The film has been criticized for ignoring the role of Rewi Alley, a Communist New Zealander celebrated in China's revolution. Conversion of the nurse played by Radha Mitchell from a New Zealander (Kathleen Hall, associated with Alley) to an American also received negative attention.[7] The omission of Alley in particular has been called a blatant misrepresentation by at least one critic.[8]
The film grossed around $7.4 million worldwide,[9] including $1.6 million in China and Spain, and $1 million in the US and Australia.[10]
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